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The guy in the above picture is Bill Sparkman from Kentucky. He's now dead, having been hanged recently and left to rot in a remote area of Daniel Boone National Forest. That's right, he was hung from a tree and when found had the word "fed" scrawled on his chest.

Bill Sparkman worked part time for the Census, according to the AP article, conducting interviews once or twice a month in Clay County, Kentucky.

Gilbert Acciardo, a retired Kentucky state trooper who directs an after-school program at the elementary school where Sparkman was a frequent substitute teacher, said
he had warned Sparkman to be careful when he did his Census work.

"I told him on more than one occasion, based on my years in the state police, 'Mr. Sparkman, when you go into those counties, be careful because people are going to perceive you different than they do elsewhere,' " Acciardo said.

"Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as 'the government.' I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there," Acciardo said.

A part time federal Census worker in red state Kentucky hung from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled in his chest.

Why it would be necessary for a former state trooper to warn Mr. Sparkman about specific Kentucky counties where "people...perceive" federal workers differently.......is yet to be determined.

I know that back in the 60's many citizens from southern states considered federal workers, especially civil-rights workers, "differently." So differently that some of those civil rights workers were murdered.

Now, it would be easy for me to attribute this heinous act as part and parcel of the larger conservative hate-Obama-government movement. A result of endless conservative gasbag rhetoric over ACORN and the upcoming Census in 2010....or the frenzy of anti-government emotions witnessed in the incoherent TeaBagger and 9-12'er movements.

"The mother lode of all data information will be
from the Census. … Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. I know for my family,
the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that."

Maybe the person, or persons, who hung Bill Sparkman and scrawled the word "fed" in his chest were pre-emptively resisting, like Bachmann suggested she would, the Census. Michelle said that ACORN could be involved with the Census, so, you know, can't take any chances.

Make no mistake.....this murder looks like a political assassination, much like the Dr. George Tiller assassination a few months ago by the conservative culture warrior Scott Roeder. If, in the end, that proves to be the case....the hanging of Bill Sparkman, a very nice man who worked as a substitute teacher in Kentucky public schools and part time for the Census, may come to be known as one of the earliest victims in America's new domestic war of the 21st century.